A HAMPSHIRE father unwittingly became wrapped up in a conspiracy to supply £2 million worth of cannabis across the UK.

Professional lorry driver Adam Gorniak was asked to travel to London by what he would later discover to be a drugs gang.

The group contacted him with a driving job after police intercepted one of their vehicles with more than 55kg of cannabis inside.

He was then told to drive a van to a warehouse in Leicestershire, which contained more than 170kg of the Class B drug.

But prior to making the drive, the 37-year-old father-of-two was not told he would be helping to move cannabis out of the warehouse.

Gorniak only made the discovery after he saw the cannabis through a split in one of the bags.

He then refused to drive the cannabis filled van, which was abandoned in a nearby rural street.

Gorniak was later arrested along with Wojceich Michalski – the man who had first contacted him with the job offer.

Mariusz Musial, Marcin Wielgus and Wojceich Michalski were previously jailed for a total of more than a decade after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply Class B drug.

Now Gorniak, who appeared at Southampton Crown Court on Wednesday, has been given a suspended sentence, after pleading guilty to his part in the conspiracy.

Gorniak was spared a prison sentence because prosecutors accepted in his basis of his guilty plea that he had not known about the cannabis until his arrival at the warehouse – and had refused to drive the vehicle after it had been loaded.

The court also heard from Gorniak’s defence barrister, who said his client was a “hardworking and legitimate” driver, a “dedicated family man” and had no previous convictions.

Judge Nicholas Rowland sentenced Gorniak, of Cherry Tree Close, Farnborough, to a nine month sentence, suspended for 12 months.

He said: “You are a hardworking man, goodness knows what you were doing getting involved with with these three and that amount of cannabis.”

Gorniak was also ordered to complete 180 hours of unpaid work.

In June 2019, Musial, 31, of Orchard Mead, Waterlooville was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply a Class B drug.

Wielgus, 42, of Waterhouse Street, Hertfordshire was sentenced to three years and six months after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply a Class B drug.

Michalski, 54, of Gilderdale, Luton was sentenced to 21 months after pleading guilty to conspiracy to supply a Class B drug.

Michalski was found to be driving a vehicle containing 55kg of cannabis on the M1 southbound in Buckinghamshire on December 3.

Musial and Wielgus were linked to a 170kg of cannabis loaded in a van near Coalville in Leicestershire.